Breaking Credit Market

Deladan

Stop making me feel guilty for logging in

Shirszae

Speak english, damnit 

Skye

He's saying that trying to work off the average sale price still allows for people to manipulate the market and price speculate, albeit in a slower, less certain way. The thing is that it would require several people working together to do it like some grand conspiracy.

The alternative would be to find a different way to calculate the average price (mathematically speaking there are at least three ways of determining this), all of which may be played or speculated with to varying degrees of success, but possibly less so than simply taking the mean average (which I assume is what is being done at the moment). 

The last way he says is to put a stop to any large range price speculation at all by only allowing sale prices to have a difference of 5 gold from each other (currently it's set to ±300 gold) and then taking census what the most common sale price (and probably by number of credits sold) over the course of 7 days to determine what is the most acceptable average price.

Something like that anyway. I may be azn but I failed statistics like two semesters running. This isn't my forte >_> 

Sirrion

I recommend IRE implement an IRS tax system. Log yearly wages earned per character, fit them into a tax bracket, and charge 5-30% in tax annually based on overall income level. Just think of the immersion!

Sirrion

New class will be "the taxman" and they will wield knee shattering clubs. Problems solved.

Ahmet

Devran said:

Tahquil said:

It doesn't limit everyone though. Only those that, yes, can spend 6 hours bashing.
Makarios or Sarapis would have the numbers of how many people log in for more than X timeframe a day vs how many actually hit DR, and how many hit the cap.

But the thing is if I CHOOSE to on the weekends do marathon bashing sessions, I am now no longer able to do that. That's poor design.

You can still spend weekends on marathon bashing sessions. You just can't break the economy with them anymore.

Devran

Ahmet said:

Devran said:

Tahquil said:

It doesn't limit everyone though. Only those that, yes, can spend 6 hours bashing.
Makarios or Sarapis would have the numbers of how many people log in for more than X timeframe a day vs how many actually hit DR, and how many hit the cap.

But the thing is if I CHOOSE to on the weekends do marathon bashing sessions, I am now no longer able to do that. That's poor design.

You can still spend weekends on marathon bashing sessions. You just can't break the economy with them anymore.

Considering the ENORMOUS capital some players have already, the amount I could bash up on weekends would be a trivial impact. I should not be penalized because some people may have abused scripts in the past.

The best thing about IRE games from the very beginning has been the ability for people to progress their character within a reasonable amount of time, depending on how much time they invested, by bashing.

That has been completely gutted by DR. A new method needs to be implemented.

Greys

@Devran pretty sure DR enables that not impedes that. DR applies more to established characters which in turn facilitates those trying to establish themselves.

Sobriquet

I'll start with that fact I really like Penwize but I'm not sorry the changes have dropped these very high gold earners from the game. 

Aegoth

Sobriquet said:

I'll start with that fact I really like Penwize but I'm not sorry the changes have dropped these very high gold earners from the game. 

So you -want- people leaving Achaea instead of retaining them... very telling

Szanthax

Aegoth said:

Sobriquet said:

I'll start with that fact I really like Penwize but I'm not sorry the changes have dropped these very high gold earners from the game. 

So you -want- people leaving Achaea instead of retaining them... very telling

I think we want players spending more money. Beimg able to bash 50 credits a day takes that away. Should it be possible to bash up credits? Yes. But I'd be curious to see the monetary investment of those top 1% v credits bought in game.

Aegoth

Not everyone is rich like you and I, my friend

Szanthax

Aegoth said:

Not everyone is rich like you and I, my friend

Business models where you give everything away don't work. Why even buy credits if you can just bash them up? No-brainer hang credits as you level were big surprises to me

Tydas

Aegoth said:

Sobriquet said:

...

So you -want- people leaving Achaea instead of retaining them... very telling

Aegoth said:

Not everyone is rich like you and I, my friend

You're right. You have people like me, who aren't making much right now and don't have as much disposable income. I can afford IRE, and that's about it. I've very rarely bought credit packages, and the ones I have were always small, biggest was a one-time 100 credit purchase. That's over the nearly fifteen years I've been playing Achaea. I've earned the vast majority of my credits in-game, with gold.

So, when you say this DR and gold cap thing is a bad thing, to say I disagree would be an understatement. I don't have the time to make 500 - 800 thousand gold every day, even if I had the capability. I don't have the time to make that much in a week. So to say I have to compete with a scarce resource like credits with people who DO make that much puts ME off of playing.

I'd rather alienate the bare handful of people who do bash up that much gold and screw up the markets for everyone else than the far more common, average gold earner for whom it had been getting tougher and tougher to be able to afford things like credits.

I like there being diminishing returns on hunting up gold. It levels the playing field a bit for everyone else, actually lets us get to the same level as Penwize without scripting our hunting while we do work/watch Netflix/play another game/whatever in another window. Not experience level, but the other metaphorical kind.

Aerek

Whales that can spend any amount of OOC currency on the game, and marathon players that can spend any amount of time grinding up IC currency in the game, are both fractional minorities of the playerbase, is the key detail. The game has to make sure the economy is workable and healthy for the "middle class" of players who have neither infinite cash flows, nor infinite time to spend grinding. If you're on either end of the bell curve, yes, you're going to feel the inconvenience, but like any responsible company, IRE has to balance around the statistical majority.

Xaden

Aerek said:

Whales that can spend any amount of OOC currency on the game, and marathon players that can spend any amount of time grinding up IC currency in the game, are both fractional minorities of the playerbase, is the key detail. The game has to make sure the economy is workable and healthy for the "middle class" of players who have neither infinite cash flows, nor infinite time to spend grinding. If you're on either end of the bell curve, yes, you're going to feel the inconvenience, but like any responsible company, IRE has to balance around the statistical majority.

Tell that to the government.

Amirite?!

Szanthax

Aerek said:

Whales that can spend any amount of OOC currency on the game, and marathon players that can spend any amount of time grinding up IC currency in the game, are both fractional minorities of the playerbase, is the key detail. The game has to make sure the economy is workable and healthy for the "middle class" of players who have neither infinite cash flows, nor infinite time to spend grinding. If you're on either end of the bell curve, yes, you're going to feel the inconvenience, but like any responsible company, IRE has to balance around the statistical majority.

I mostly agree with this, I'm  at the end of both bells and dont feel inconvenienced. I've never hit the cap (well maybe once). I can sell credits as much as I want... But now i just buy them because I want them more expensive knowing I can buy with money when I want

Zulah

Aegoth said:

Not everyone is rich like you and I, my friend

Can confirm. Aegoth bets me hundreds of credits on coin tosses.

I told my wife I was betting 2000 credits on a coin flip and she said thanks for the new dslr camera. I said what camera? She smiled and walked away with my wallet...

Szanthax

Zulah said:

Aegoth said:

Not everyone is rich like you and I, my friend

Can confirm. Aegoth bets me hundreds of credits on coin tosses.

I told my wife I was betting 2000 credits on a coin flip and she said thanks for the new dslr camera. I said what camera? She smiled and walked away with my wallet...

How about I just kick you in the balls and you give m e your credits ... Besides I have the IRE card. Never leave home without it

Sena

Is the most common/problematic method of speculation really to buy credits and immediately put them up at high prices? To me, that seems like a lazy and not very effective way to do it, while normal (from my perspective) speculation still works fine with these restrictions; buy credits when they're not too expensive, wait for the current/average prices to get higher, then put them up for sale at now-reasonable prices. Unless it's near the end of an auction or something and you won't be around at the right time, and want to take advantage of the chance that someone will end up buying your credits at 20k. Outside of situations like that, it seems rare for the far-above-average credits to actually sell, or impact the market much (and even in those extreme situations, the prices usually bounce back pretty quickly).

Basically, I'm wondering how these restrictions are meant to be effective in reducing speculation. They should make the market a bit more stable (huge fluctuations will tend to take more time without the outlier sales; they'll still happen though), which could potentially be a good thing, but I don't see how they'd remove or lessen any upward pressures on credit prices.

Besides that, I'm not sure speculation is really a big enough problem to focus much attention on. Excessive speculation would be a significant source of upward pressure, but there are a lot of other things that have larger effects, making it a secondary issue at worst. And even if speculation actually makes up most of the credit sales and becomes one of the primary causes of increasing prices, it seems likely that it's just one symptom of a bigger problem (considering the market was pretty stable for years, and almost eliminating credit speculation for a couple months in 2007 didn't really change much) and treating the speculation itself wouldn't be very effective.

Omor

00:11:23.728 (10:11PM GMT time)
Credits currently available for purchase:

     272 credits at  9193 gold per credit.

      20 credits at  9195 gold per credit.

      50 credits at  9400 gold per credit.

      30 credits at  9600 gold per credit.

      10 credits at  9679 gold per credit.

Total credits for sale: 382 shown (382 total)  (Average sale price: 9493)

Jinsun

Omor said:

00:11:23.728 (10:11PM GMT time)
Credits currently available for purchase:

     272 credits at  9193 gold per credit.

      20 credits at  9195 gold per credit.

      50 credits at  9400 gold per credit.

      30 credits at  9600 gold per credit.

      10 credits at  9679 gold per credit.

Total credits for sale: 382 shown (382 total)  (Average sale price: 9493)

The caps and anti-speculation scripts are working flawlessly! The market has leveled!

Frederich

GDI.  I worked HARD TO GET THEM to 8000 ; A ;

Tydas

So, I've been throwing this idea around my head a bit, since I agree with a lot of people here that the changes to CFS aren't going to work (which was the main point of this thread, not the gold caps/DR). Let's call this plan, "Returning Achaea to the Gold Standard".

1. Only unbound credits can be put on CFS. They can be done so at any price. This undoes the most recent change.
2. Credits bought off CFS are bound. Any bonus lessons from binding credits are applied. This completely removes the ability to buy credits low and sell high, whether to quickly boost the price of credits and resell, or through Sena's more subtle way. Also, City and House creditsales result in bound credits only: no more unbound credits from those sales. Any credits bought with gold, essentially, become bound.
3. Unbound credits can only be transferred to characters registered to the same e-mail. This is the one that's going to tick off the most people, but hear me out.

By preventing people from transferring credits to others, you're forcing them to use gold for the vast majority of purchases in the game. Credits have always felt a little OOC for my taste, so things like buying a ship, a rare item, or whatever for credits between characters felt a little weird. This way, you have to use gold.

You're also preventing people from selling on market. If you want to sell credits for gold, CFS is how you do it. This prevents any and all forms of speculation, including buying a bunch of credits cheaper through market and reselling higher on CFS.

Some questions/objections I've heard from the people in this thread and from the straw men in my head:

• What if I want to lend credits to someone? Easy, just lend them the gold to buy off CFS.

• What if I don't have that gold, but do have the unbound credits? Sell your credits, and give them the proceeds. They can buy their own credits.

• What if I just want to buy credits then give them straight to the person without messing with CFS? Simple, put THEIR name in the box when buying credits on the website, and you get the same result.

• I like credits, they're more secure to trade with, why can't I keep that? Because they aren't more secure. Yes, the admin takes credit scams a little more seriously, but if you get scammed out of gold you can still issue and it's still something that will get sorted out.

• I don't want to meet in person, credits lets me trade from a distance, how do I do that with gold? Letters, of course.

• Credits are safer, people can't pickpocket them, how do I keep my wealth safe? Congratulations, you're part of the problem. Take the same sort of precautions everyone else does with their gold, like the bank, good reflexes, selfishness, etc. and you'll be fine.

• What if I want to buy an artefact for someone else? Well, you may be able to still use unbound credits for that, it's one of the things I couldn't decide on. Let's leave that up the admin. Or, you know, just buy them the credits.

So, tell me what you guys think. I know, half of you are going to say it's insane and bad, but other than the fact that it's simply change from the status quo, or the objections listed above, what problems are there, really? A more IC, roleplay way of buying and selling things between characters? A more stable credit market without the problems of speculation? 

Also @Sarapis @Makarios @Nicola, just so they see this and can be thinking about it, even if they reject it out of hand.

Omor

I'm not going to say that the CFS I shared above is the usual, as this is the first time I've logged in today. But, 9193gp minimum made me gag.

Zulah

I'm actually only upset when I see:

Credits currently available for purchase:

Total credits for sale: 0 shown (0 total)  (Average sale price: 9493)

And I've seen that several times since this started. Put credits up!

Shirszae

Definitely not a fan of making CFS bound. Not sure about making unbound non-transferable. 

On second thought: If you can't transfer then they might as well be bound. I honestly don't think it is the best way to do things, it just seems like it'll make things a bit more annoying without actually fixing anything in the end.

Ahmet

I wonder if people have, or soon will, buy their own credits to inflate the market, or trade-off in pairs back and forth to inflate the market.

Preemptive fix?

Sarapis

Cooper said:

My problems are things (or attitudes) that you've said. Pretty much all of which have been resolved as of now.

Are you sure the gold cap is at 250k right now? Last I was told it was at 160-180k, though you might be distinguishing between diminishing returns and a straight cap.

Pretty sure, yep. Soft cap kicks in, and hard cap kicks in later.

Sarapis

Devran said:

Tahquil said:

It doesn't limit everyone though. Only those that, yes, can spend 6 hours bashing.
Makarios or Sarapis would have the numbers of how many people log in for more than X timeframe a day vs how many actually hit DR, and how many hit the cap.

But the thing is if I CHOOSE to on the weekends do marathon bashing sessions, I am now no longer able to do that. That's poor design.

Of course you are. Nobody is stopping you from marathon bashing sessions. Bash your heart out, get xp, get talisman pieces, etc. But exactly like before, how much gold you get from bashing is determined by the code. It used to be that nobody got gold from bashing, at all. Then different formulas have been applied over the years to how much gold you get from bashing, exactly like now.